Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

Immanuel Kant said, “He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”

Several times a day on TV, you see ASPCA asking for funds to help abandoned and neglected animals. San Angelo’s shelter and animal groups not only seek forever homes for animals but are now working toward a no-kill policy. What is the heart of these people?

What was the heart of those behind the zero tolerance policy? In the past, President Donald Trump has referred to immigrants from Mexico as bad hombres, killers and rapists. Pit bulls were once an American favorite, but exploited by man for dog fights with their strong appearance and man’s cruel training, the dog became a symbol of violence, drug culture and gangs. We’ve all heard the consequences of your actions and probably said it to someone. The consequences of zero tolerance separating families, putting children in cages and whisking parents off to detention centers, may result in Made in America bad hombres, killers and rapists.

We’ve had a love-hate relationship with immigrants over the years. James Chamberlain, a tailor, one of 4.8 million Irishmen who migrated to America from 1850-1929, wrote home lamenting, “Immigration has killed the country. It is nothing to see seventeen hundred immigrants every other week at the wharfs: Swedes, Poles, Russian Jews, Hungarians and Bulgarians and Italians knock them all out.”

It was in the 1830s that the Native Americans trudged the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma, only to be displaced again by the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 and 1893, to create white communities. The Native Americans were forced to sell their land to the State for the 1889 Land Rush. On Sept. 16, 1893, 125 years ago, 115,000 people raced to claim 42,000 parcels of The Cherokee Strip.

We just came home from a trip out west. While driving through reservations in Arizona and New Mexico, I couldn’t help but wonder, who should have been lamenting immigrants – the Irish immigrant or the Native American?

Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s most controversial immigration policies, prompted Stephen’s uncle, David Glosssler to say, “Trump and my nephew both know their immigrant and refugee roots. Yet, they repeat the insults and false accusations of earlier generations against these refugees to make them seem less than human.” He went on to the say had these policies been in effect in 1903, as Jews, they would not have made it to Ellis Island.

When the railroad tracks were being laid for West to meet East, the companies on the West Coast had a hard time hiring a good labor force. As most Caucasians preferred mining and agriculture work, a few Chinese were hired. They proved to be so good, the companies preferred to hire them. While our agriculture and construction business needs the workers from across the border, rather than a good worker’s permit program, Trump wants to build a Wall.

When I pass the dog park and see the humans with their beloved dogs, I can see the heart of men and women by the treatment of their dogs.

And yet, our hearts are cold and uncaring as we inflict pain and trauma on our neighbors, who share the same border with us, and who are longing for the same thing our ancestors crossed the ocean in search of.